


LongShot

by Maneuver7



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 18:11:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17309420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maneuver7/pseuds/Maneuver7
Summary: How can two people so messed up find love in grief?





	LongShot

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to all the people willing to acknowledge how beautiful this ship could be.

Ironically, it was Artemis’s death that started things.

Nineteen days after recovering the original Roy. Sixteen days after signing his and Jade’s divorce papers. Eight hours before hearing the news from Dinah.

Now, he’d be hard-pressed to say what he did those two days between getting the news and visiting the hospital to finally meet the man he was cloned from. He didn’t have the energy to be angry the way the real Roy was angry. And when Ollie started beating himself up, blaming himself for everything that happened, the part of this clone of Roy William Harper that thought he’d enjoy seeing the day where Oliver Queen admitted his faults was mysteriously gone.

And in its place was a man who hadn’t been able to comfort any of the people he was close to, but who wanted to so desperate. He didn’t know how to talk to Jade or Wally or Dick or M’gann or Conner. There was too much baggage in all those places. But here was someone he did know how to talk to. So he did one of the things he’d been avoiding for years now: he opened up. And maybe that was the leak in the dam, because—after making sure the runaway original Roy was safe—he went home and he properly mourned the woman he’d known and fought alongside for five years. The woman killed by his former best friend. The sister of his former wife.

His feelings for her back then weren’t what they are now, but it was the start. It was the recognition that he felt any kind of way about her at all. The acknowledgement that she was an important part of his life. And he would miss her so, so much.

Then he found out she wasn’t dead. Kaldur never killed her. Jade had even known long before someone bothered to clue Roy in.

He was hurt and confused and maybe even a little angry, but so much more than that, he was relieved.

A day later Wally died.

He was no longer relieved. And again, he found himself unable to comfort the people around him. But this time he tried. He talked to Barry, Dick, Artemis, Kaldur, and even M’gann and Conner. He was there for all of them in a way he hadn’t been for five years.

But he kept the closest eye on Artemis. Because while Dick was the one going solo, the entire Batfamily had his back. As part of the Arrowfamily, Roy needed to be—wanted to be—that support for her.

He didn’t want to lose her again.

For Artemis, it was months until she felt even some semblance of normal. Everything reminded her of Wally. Everything still does if she’s honest, but back then there was no joy, however bittersweet, in those things. It was just a sick feeling twisting in her stomach and locking up her throat.

Roy helped.

Roy checked in regularly, walked the dog, brought groceries or took her out for lunch, talked to her about whatever she wanted to talk about. They shared stories about Wally when she wanted. Said nothing at all when she didn’t. Talked about their last mission when all else failed.

But every time he left, and she was back to just her and Brucely in a too big, too empty, too quiet apartment, she felt a fresh wave of crushing loneliness. By the winter, she’d had enough, and Roy graciously let her move in with him.

She’d already unpacked most of her boxes, and they were eating pizza on the floor because Brucely was monopolizing the couch, when the thought first occurred to her that Roy didn’t look half bad in the light of their TV.

The thought was a betrayal on multiple fronts. A betrayal of Wally, of Jade, of Roy himself and his generosity and kindness, of herself and the wounds in her heart that didn’t want to close.

It took another month for her to look Roy in the eye again. That lasted two more weeks until Valentine’s Day, when Artemis rebuffed his half-serious/half-joking attempts to join him in his lonely-hearts night of eating ice cream and watching action flicks. The fact that that sounded absolutely perfect only made her angrier (at herself).

She may have yelled at him.

She may have felt guilty about it, but not as guilty as when by the beginning of March, Roy was coming to her, apologizing for whatever he thought he’d done to upset her when the truth was it was all Artemis. All her problem all her fault that she was struggling to keep her heart and libido in check. Struggling to keep her feelings strictly platonic.

At that time, Artemis was so busy trying to hold herself together by a few dangling threads that she wouldn’t have noticed Roy marking the anniversary of her death with a stiff beer and a big bear hug if he hadn’t openly admitted it. Told her to her face that he was so thankful she was alive.

In retrospect, maybe she should’ve seen in Roy’s eyes that he’d started reciprocating her unwanted feelings. But, then again, they were also unwanted feelings for Roy, and he hid them very well. He had no intention of burdening her if he could help it.

Cliché as it was, the spring brought life anew. Artemis went back to school, stopped avoiding her therapist, started regularly seeing her friends outside missions, found normalcy—real normalcy—again. And in that time, where she found herself able to breathe again when she saw a picture of Wally, able to sleep again with the thought of him in her mind, she also fell further for Roy.

Roy cooked meals with her, played board games with her, commuted to work/school with her, took care of Lian on the weekends with her, and fought side-by-side with her. He had her back. And whether she knew it or not, by the time June came around, she had his heart.

Through the months, he watched her growth and recovery with awe. And terror. Because these feelings weren’t part of his plan. Supporting Artemis, he could do. Loving her? She didn’t want that, didn’t need that, at least that’s what he convinced himself so completely that nine days before the end of June, he told her he was going to move out. She could take over his lease if she wanted, or find another place that suited her, he’d give her the security deposit, it was fine.

In hindsight, he’d timed it poorly. Perhaps one day after the anniversary of Wally’s death was not the day to tell Artemis he wasn’t going to live with her anymore. But in fairness to Roy, he didn’t know that she would view it as a slap in the face, as imminent impending loneliness, instead of respecting her space.

She’d demanded why he would do this to her, why he would leave her all alone. Roy tried to explain he wasn’t good for her, but that only raised more questions. Roy wouldn’t have said the real reason if she wasn’t already crying, already apparently as upset as she could possible be. At least, whatever disgust or contempt she felt knowing Roy’s feelings, would be better than this.

So he confessed.

And at first it made her really, really angry, which was more or less what Roy’d expected. But the things she said while angry, about liking him back, about him being stupid for thinking moving out would fix things, he very much never expected.

They might’ve kissed then and there, if Roy hadn’t already done the relationship out of self-hatred thing. He and Jade hadn’t been good for each other for a lot of reasons, but the cycle of punishing themselves, doing something naughty to feel better, feeling worse later, and then punishing themselves again, was the main reason they’d had to break it off.

And while Artemis had never dated anyone out of or to run from or to dwell in self-loathing, she understood. She too had her own insecurities and horrible ways of coping with them.

They went to their separate beds that night without so much as holding hands.

Instead, their first kiss was on the Fourth of July. Under the fireworks celebrating one year of independence from the Reach. It was a day both of them could be proud of. It was a moment of romance they could share without hating themselves for it later.

They move slow after that. So cautiously, glacially slow that at first glance nothing seemed to have changed. But as they both got more comfortable with the casual touches, the occasional sleeping in the same bed, the public dates, both realized how much they and the other had needed this.

By the time they were ready to tell their friends, the summer had long ended. One day in November, Artemis and Roy walked into the Watchtower holding hands, which seemed like the usual way their friend group announced romantic interests (unless you were Dick, in which case you just made out in front of everybody).

Zatanna made a very tight “oh” sound, but if that was the most judgement they received, they were grateful for it.

Because next they had to tell Jade.

They invited her to dinner, thinking a good meal and Lian’s presence could prevent Jade from killing either (or both) of them. The entire time Artemis and Roy fussed and worried, didn’t even kiss the morning of because they had to be proper and appropriate. By the time dinner was over they were a bundle of shot nerves and tense muscles and nervous-sick stomachs, and they still hadn’t told Jade.

Eventually, Artemis whispered it to her sister when they were standing on the stoop waiting for Jade’s lyft. Artemis had braced for an impact that never came.

Instead, Jade just sighed. Said she already knew. _How_ she didn’t specify. But she did say just as the car pulled up to their street,

“If he hurts you, I’ll kill him.”

She’d said the same thing when Artemis had brought home Wally. And Artemis was in a good enough place to smile at the bittersweet parallel.

Months later, Artemis and Roy continued to live together, eat together, walk the dog together, and sometimes even sleep together. Every day they put in the time, the effort, the honesty, and the self-reflection to keep each other and themselves happy and healthy. They were pretty sure this came as a surprise to all their friends, no matter how supportive. Because they were such an unlikely couple. Such a long shot.

Maybe the strangest thing about Artemis and Roy’s relationship was how well it worked.

 


End file.
